One day in my AP Language Class, my students read a series of articles on the death of Princess Diana in order to analyze different audiences and purposes for each kind of article. I chose this particular subject for the students to analyze as it related to the current topic of Prince William and Catherine Middleton's engagement and Diana's death was an event that had happened in my student's lifetime -- although they were quite young. My students, who are a very diverse crowd both economically and racial/culturally had mixed reactions to the subject. Some of my students -- mainly the Asian, Latino and African American -- did not know much about the British Royal Family and one girl, whose knowledge of Princes and Princesses came primarily from Disney films, asked if the reason Princess Diana was called a Princess was because she was still a teenager. Didn't she become Queen when she became a grown up woman? This experience was sort of a wake up call for me about class, culture, and taste.
If your ethnic background does not take your family roots back to merry old England or even Europe, why would you be interested in all things British? Even British literature? This is why it should also not be a surprise to me that the Latino and African American English teachers in my school try to avoid teaching Shakespeare and the British Literature course. What is interesting about that is if I disdained to teach Toni Morrison or Sandra Cisneros, I would be called a racist. Aren't those guys being racist for disdaining to teach "the dead white males"? I would like to say NO on both accounts, because for most of us, it is simply a matter of taste.
David Hume reminds us that the temperate rather than the passionate nature will make us "happier" human beings. It is most of the time not within our control to experience good or bad fortune, so one should cultivate a calmer disposition in order to enjoy the ordinary days in life rather than let our extreme passions on good and bad days overshadow the joy of everyday living. However, one of the things Hume suggests adds to the joy of everyday living is our capacity to become passionate about the artistic beauty we choose to expose ourselves to -- specifically in literature. He notes that ". . . delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion: It enlarges the sphere of both our happiness and misery and makes us sensible to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind . . .the good or ill accidents of life are very little at our disposal; but we are pretty much masters of what books we shall read, what diversions we shall partake of, and what company we keep . . . every wise man will endeavor to place his happiness on such objects chiefly as depend upon himself; and that is not to be attained so much by any other means by this delicacy of sentiment. When a man is possessed of that talent, he is more happy by what pleases his taste, than by what gratifies his appetites, and receives more enjoyment from a poem or a piece of reasoning than the most expensive luxury can afford."
That being said, even if one's background or culture does not naturally gravitate one toward what Hume calls the "higher and more refined taste" that does not mean teachers should not attempt to expose students to work they might not naturally gravitate toward. I like to use Literature Circles with my students which gives them somewhat of a choice. If I have to teach British Literature, students can at least choose their novel or author based on what they might most be naturally interested in. This has been somewhat successful, even with kids who had not been exposed much to British literature. Plus, my passion toward the subject goes a long way in showing students the beauty and power of the language of authors such as Shakespeare or Dickens or Austen.
Conversely, my natural affinity may not be to gravitate toward authors outside of my comfort zone, but have learned to love and appreciate work of multicultural authors. Refined and higher minded work does not always come from the dead white males -- and I never thought it did -- but I also think there is still much to be appreciated and taught from those tried and true classics.
Matthew Arnold believes taste varies between the classes of the Populace, the Philistines, and the Barbarians and he concedes that there is much to admire in the culture of all three of these classes. I think it is dangerous to pigeon hole the taste of humans into social classes, even if there is a lot of truth behind stereotypes and categories. As a teacher of high school English, I believe it is my job to expose my students and myself to a wide variety of taste in literature and to never look down on anyone's taste in literature or music or art. This kind of beauty does what Hume says it should do -- adds passion and happiness to our ordinary lives.
However, the question of what kinds of literature one should be exposed to in order to qualify as "well educated" is still highly debated -- but I think it is dangerous when the debate becomes too race and culture oriented. It should be a matter of taste. The educated palate should be able to, as Hume suggests, "judge the character of men, of compositions of genius, and productions of the nobler arts" regardless of the race or social class from which this work of art originated.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Oh Dream Weaver, I Believe You Can Get Me Through the Day . . .
Nietzsche, in "On Truth and Lies in the Non-moral Sense" expands on the Ancient Greek's concept of reality and non-reality by challenging us to try to remember that there was once a time when "human intellect" did not exist and there was no "knowing." This makes me think of Albert Einstein's quote of "To know is nothing at all but to imagine is everything." Nietzsche would probably agree with this in the sense that he seems to think that human existence could be nothing more than an imagined dream. Just where does the dream end and the reality begin? How do we know we are not dreaming now? This imagined reality is a concept that seems popular in this digital age, as evidenced by a recent influx of motion pictures devoted to reality and non-reality. My daughter points out that it seems many of these films star Leonardo DiCaprio, but whether that is relevant or not, one wonders if writers and directors had Nietzsche in mind when they created the film "Inception." (Here is where I wish I knew how to create hyper-text. Is it really simple to learn this?)
Anyway, for those who have not seen Inception, it deals with how the mind during sleep is able to trick itself into all kinds of beliefs about what is real. It is a breeding ground for the power of suggestion which allows, in this fictional tale, infiltrators to enter your dreams and alter your dream consciousness so much that it affects what you think or feel or believe in your waking consciousness. Nietzsche states that "Pascal is right in maintaining that if the same dream came to us every night we would be just as occupied with it as we are with the things that we see every day. Quoting Pascal, he continues, "If a workman were sure to dream for twelve straight hours every night that he was king, I believe that he would be just as happy as a king who dreamt for twelve hours every night that he was a workman." Nietzsche believes that man wants to alter his own truth or reality, as it is a way to experience the elusive happiness. "[M]an has in invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic fables as if they were true, or when the actor in the theater acts more royally than any real king. So long as it is able to deceive without injuring, that master of deception, the intellect, is free; it is relased from its former slavery and celebrates its Saturnalia. It is never more luxuriant, richer, prouder, more clever and more daring." Is this an argument that the human intellect needs to occasionally exchange reality for imagined reality in order for it to thrive?
Nietzsche's belief is never more relevant than it is today as film, television, and computer-generated digital realities take over most of our "waking" lives, blurring even more the lines between illusion and reality, truth and untruth. Like Plato's men in "The Allegory of the Cave" we are sometimes more comfortable in our "shadow realities" or the the images projected to us on a screen. Why else would virtual computer worlds become so popular and virtual actions? Why become an actual rock star or tennis player when Wii can make you feel as if you are -- or, as Nietzsche would put it -- lie to yourself that you are what you imagine you are.
Next, I'd tell you to enjoy some scenes from Inception that I found on You-Tube, but I can't figure out how to post the video. Drat! My daughter was home from college and helped me last time. Seriously, it can't be this hard to figure out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OmY6A6YW-qQ
Anyway, for those who have not seen Inception, it deals with how the mind during sleep is able to trick itself into all kinds of beliefs about what is real. It is a breeding ground for the power of suggestion which allows, in this fictional tale, infiltrators to enter your dreams and alter your dream consciousness so much that it affects what you think or feel or believe in your waking consciousness. Nietzsche states that "Pascal is right in maintaining that if the same dream came to us every night we would be just as occupied with it as we are with the things that we see every day. Quoting Pascal, he continues, "If a workman were sure to dream for twelve straight hours every night that he was king, I believe that he would be just as happy as a king who dreamt for twelve hours every night that he was a workman." Nietzsche believes that man wants to alter his own truth or reality, as it is a way to experience the elusive happiness. "[M]an has in invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic fables as if they were true, or when the actor in the theater acts more royally than any real king. So long as it is able to deceive without injuring, that master of deception, the intellect, is free; it is relased from its former slavery and celebrates its Saturnalia. It is never more luxuriant, richer, prouder, more clever and more daring." Is this an argument that the human intellect needs to occasionally exchange reality for imagined reality in order for it to thrive?
Nietzsche's belief is never more relevant than it is today as film, television, and computer-generated digital realities take over most of our "waking" lives, blurring even more the lines between illusion and reality, truth and untruth. Like Plato's men in "The Allegory of the Cave" we are sometimes more comfortable in our "shadow realities" or the the images projected to us on a screen. Why else would virtual computer worlds become so popular and virtual actions? Why become an actual rock star or tennis player when Wii can make you feel as if you are -- or, as Nietzsche would put it -- lie to yourself that you are what you imagine you are.
Next, I'd tell you to enjoy some scenes from Inception that I found on You-Tube, but I can't figure out how to post the video. Drat! My daughter was home from college and helped me last time. Seriously, it can't be this hard to figure out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OmY6A6YW-qQ
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Night of the Living and Dead Word: On Dialogue
I'm constantly making my students dialogue with each other. Not only does this satisfy the current educational buzz term of "differentiated instruction," I also truly belive that they learn more and absorb concepts better when they "talk among themselves" about the concepts I am teaching them or the issues that come up in our readings. I teach AP Language and Composition and it is all about getting high school upperclassmen tho understand and analyze the power of language. It's about the art of rhetoric. So, dialogue as a genre being relevant to teaching? You bet it is. We do it everyday in our graduate classes as well.
According to Plato, the "art of the dialectic" has the "power of dividing a whole into parts and of uniting the parts in a whole . . . which may also be regarded as the process of the mind talking with herself." As I am understanding this, dialogue helps the mind to think better as it takes a topic and breaks it down and understands it through the art of a "conversation among friends" in the case of the Sophists -- friends that are worthy of appreciating your intellect and level of ideas. A concept becomes better understood -- a truth revealed in real time -- through the art of conversation or dialogue. It does seem slightly ironic that Socrates was such a critc of the written word -- calling it the "dead" as opposed to the "living" word. This makes me think of how Christians view the Bible as the "living word" which does not just mean the Catholic notion that the word becomes flesh in Jesus Christ, but also that the word in the Bible becomes "living" through the actions of those who read it and then decide to LIVE according to the teachings. Why couldn't Socrates see that his words would live longer when written down as they then would forever be the "living word" through people reading them and then living in accordance with the teachings.
Plato has chosen to preserve the words and teachings of Socrates through the genre of the dialogue. It is writing, yes, but it attempts to preserve what is amazing about dialogue and the living word as it is written in dialectic, conversational form. The reader gets a sense of the working of the mind of the Sophists as their ideas form freely -- or in flux -- as they come out of their mouths. The spoken word as Plato sees it through the Sophists is "transitory, diffuse, more elastic and capable of adaptation to moods and tones" and that the written word is "more permanent, more concentrated and uttered not to this or that person or audience but to all the world." What Plato has done then with the genre of dialogue is to take what Socrates and others said to a SELECT audience and preserve it for all time to "all the world." The genre of dialogue continues to happen each and every day in classrooms. It is just now we take those "dead words" on the page and keep them alive through the living words of our continued dialogue about the things we have read. In Plato's society -- in societies of the present -- and hopefully the future -- wherever there are thinkers to think and ideas to share -- dialogue will be an important tool of teaching, sharing ideas, and intellectual reflection -- whether that dialogue is preserved for future audiences or not.
According to Plato, the "art of the dialectic" has the "power of dividing a whole into parts and of uniting the parts in a whole . . . which may also be regarded as the process of the mind talking with herself." As I am understanding this, dialogue helps the mind to think better as it takes a topic and breaks it down and understands it through the art of a "conversation among friends" in the case of the Sophists -- friends that are worthy of appreciating your intellect and level of ideas. A concept becomes better understood -- a truth revealed in real time -- through the art of conversation or dialogue. It does seem slightly ironic that Socrates was such a critc of the written word -- calling it the "dead" as opposed to the "living" word. This makes me think of how Christians view the Bible as the "living word" which does not just mean the Catholic notion that the word becomes flesh in Jesus Christ, but also that the word in the Bible becomes "living" through the actions of those who read it and then decide to LIVE according to the teachings. Why couldn't Socrates see that his words would live longer when written down as they then would forever be the "living word" through people reading them and then living in accordance with the teachings.
Plato has chosen to preserve the words and teachings of Socrates through the genre of the dialogue. It is writing, yes, but it attempts to preserve what is amazing about dialogue and the living word as it is written in dialectic, conversational form. The reader gets a sense of the working of the mind of the Sophists as their ideas form freely -- or in flux -- as they come out of their mouths. The spoken word as Plato sees it through the Sophists is "transitory, diffuse, more elastic and capable of adaptation to moods and tones" and that the written word is "more permanent, more concentrated and uttered not to this or that person or audience but to all the world." What Plato has done then with the genre of dialogue is to take what Socrates and others said to a SELECT audience and preserve it for all time to "all the world." The genre of dialogue continues to happen each and every day in classrooms. It is just now we take those "dead words" on the page and keep them alive through the living words of our continued dialogue about the things we have read. In Plato's society -- in societies of the present -- and hopefully the future -- wherever there are thinkers to think and ideas to share -- dialogue will be an important tool of teaching, sharing ideas, and intellectual reflection -- whether that dialogue is preserved for future audiences or not.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Effective Communication
Well, so much to think about this week. So sorry I am responding late, but since I was not in class last week, I missed that discussion on effective communication and therefore had to not only read our assigned readings, but really wanted to read everyone's blog so I could see what was on everyone's minds. Wow. Great stuff out there.
So, on to effective communication. First, I am in awe of some of my fellow students who are talented with graphic arts and blog design, however, this is part of what is lost in effectively communicating electronically. Some of the websites and blogs are too "busy" and therefore it takes the reader awhile to navigate through them to find what he/she is looking for. Jenna claims to "hate blank space" and although I think her blog is really cute and clever, I had a harder time reading the text because I was distracted by all the busy-ness of her lack of blank space. And I don't think that is just my generation speaking. The more distracted our minds are, the less likely they focus and retain. Hmmm... perhaps why reading scores are going down?
Aaron claims that "in fact grammar has little to do with effectively relaying ideas or arguments. We speak using poor grammar constantly, but we are still understood." Okay. Is that really a fact? Where is your evidence? I get what you are saying about letting students know that there are different audiences in which writing laced with poor grammar will still get the point across, but if you state your line I quoted to a director of an English department in any school or institute of higher learning, I doubt you will get the job. And you will be asked about grammar. They always ask.
Plato states in the Phaedrus that "the first rule of good speaking is to know and speak the truth; as a Spartan proverb says, 'true art is truth'; whereas rhetoric is an art of enchantment, which makes things appear good and evil, like and unlike, as the speaker pleases." Essentially, speaking well will always enable one to get truths or lies across most effectively. If President Obama spoke using incorrect grammar, I doubt he would be president today. The poet Keats also said "beauty is truth -- truth beauty," which I think can refer to truth being found most effectively in the beauty of language. Whether that means "correct or incorrect" I guess depends on what one deems "beautiful" language.
Plato also states that "living is better than the written word" which is translated to me as a man's actions are the best example of the story of his life -- not what he says or writes. However, Plato means it more in that truth comes better "live" from the open mouth. Which makes me think of Twitter, but I will get back to that. Plato does realize that the best reason for the written word in contrast with the spoken word is its permanence. It guards against memory loss, yes, but also that it "will bring forth fruit in the minds of others as well as his own." (bugs me that I cannot cite because of Kindle having no page numbers!). Anyway, that's my ADD-type problem -- I like structure and tradition and order over chaos. Grammar is just one way to bring order to the chaos of communication. I am not a grammarian, however, so it's not like I'm in love with it. It's just a road map that helps aid in efffective communication. The written word, retained, because it is valued will be able to, as Plato states, allow fruitful ideas to form in the minds of people who read it.
Which brings me back to Twitter. Twitter, more than any other form of the written word is "live" truth (or lies) instant and spontaneous as the spoken word, but translated not from human voice to human ear, but from human thumb, to electronic device, to human eye. But are these "Tweets" of value, truth to be retained? Some may be. Others are self-involved musings clogging the minds of others, rather than being fruit. Does Twitter make our minds, for lack of a better word, constipated, rather than providing the fiber of energy the fruit of knowledge would inspire? Oh hell. I'm just trying to be humorous and it's epic failing. So, instead, I will let You-Tube and the talent of actual communicators by comedy do this for me. For, in closing, I do believe comedy or satire to be a wonderful tool in effective communication. As Jonathan Swift was aware, especially when writing essays like "A Modest Proposal," sometimes the best way to get society to think about its foibles is to get them to laugh at themselves. Enjoy the attached.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Axzxe1a78E
So, on to effective communication. First, I am in awe of some of my fellow students who are talented with graphic arts and blog design, however, this is part of what is lost in effectively communicating electronically. Some of the websites and blogs are too "busy" and therefore it takes the reader awhile to navigate through them to find what he/she is looking for. Jenna claims to "hate blank space" and although I think her blog is really cute and clever, I had a harder time reading the text because I was distracted by all the busy-ness of her lack of blank space. And I don't think that is just my generation speaking. The more distracted our minds are, the less likely they focus and retain. Hmmm... perhaps why reading scores are going down?
Aaron claims that "in fact grammar has little to do with effectively relaying ideas or arguments. We speak using poor grammar constantly, but we are still understood." Okay. Is that really a fact? Where is your evidence? I get what you are saying about letting students know that there are different audiences in which writing laced with poor grammar will still get the point across, but if you state your line I quoted to a director of an English department in any school or institute of higher learning, I doubt you will get the job. And you will be asked about grammar. They always ask.
Plato states in the Phaedrus that "the first rule of good speaking is to know and speak the truth; as a Spartan proverb says, 'true art is truth'; whereas rhetoric is an art of enchantment, which makes things appear good and evil, like and unlike, as the speaker pleases." Essentially, speaking well will always enable one to get truths or lies across most effectively. If President Obama spoke using incorrect grammar, I doubt he would be president today. The poet Keats also said "beauty is truth -- truth beauty," which I think can refer to truth being found most effectively in the beauty of language. Whether that means "correct or incorrect" I guess depends on what one deems "beautiful" language.
Plato also states that "living is better than the written word" which is translated to me as a man's actions are the best example of the story of his life -- not what he says or writes. However, Plato means it more in that truth comes better "live" from the open mouth. Which makes me think of Twitter, but I will get back to that. Plato does realize that the best reason for the written word in contrast with the spoken word is its permanence. It guards against memory loss, yes, but also that it "will bring forth fruit in the minds of others as well as his own." (bugs me that I cannot cite because of Kindle having no page numbers!). Anyway, that's my ADD-type problem -- I like structure and tradition and order over chaos. Grammar is just one way to bring order to the chaos of communication. I am not a grammarian, however, so it's not like I'm in love with it. It's just a road map that helps aid in efffective communication. The written word, retained, because it is valued will be able to, as Plato states, allow fruitful ideas to form in the minds of people who read it.
Which brings me back to Twitter. Twitter, more than any other form of the written word is "live" truth (or lies) instant and spontaneous as the spoken word, but translated not from human voice to human ear, but from human thumb, to electronic device, to human eye. But are these "Tweets" of value, truth to be retained? Some may be. Others are self-involved musings clogging the minds of others, rather than being fruit. Does Twitter make our minds, for lack of a better word, constipated, rather than providing the fiber of energy the fruit of knowledge would inspire? Oh hell. I'm just trying to be humorous and it's epic failing. So, instead, I will let You-Tube and the talent of actual communicators by comedy do this for me. For, in closing, I do believe comedy or satire to be a wonderful tool in effective communication. As Jonathan Swift was aware, especially when writing essays like "A Modest Proposal," sometimes the best way to get society to think about its foibles is to get them to laugh at themselves. Enjoy the attached.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Axzxe1a78E
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